Martyr
by Nena Camadera
Summary: As a Valkyrie, there are many times when one is left with only her thoughts for company.  Awaiting the strike of a monster within a shrine where the three Norns of Fate dwell, Lind finds herself with just that.  Oneshot


Martyr

Disclaimer: I own nothing

They would die for Him.

When it truly came down to it, that was their exact reason for living-to die for a god, so that He may live. To die for a Goddess, so that she might create.

It was why they trained diligently, day and night, week after month after year, so they might better protect the ones they were given guardianship over.

_First Class, Special Duty._

They weren't given a _special _license for nothing.

No other deities had to train their bodies so hard, so long, to be capable of maintaining the strength, the skill, that came so naturally for so many others.

_One wing. Golden eyes. Mental problems._

No other deities were thought to be worth sacrificing. All were supposed to be too precious to lose. All had something to represent. To lose that deity meant to lose that which he or she represented as well, even in cases where more than one god represented as certain concept.

Not them.

They represented nothing. They were assigned no titles, lest they be the ones earned in combat. No names of worship, lest they be by mortals mistaking them for the 'true' gods they protected. Nothing but nicknames and pet names, insults and jibes.

From the deities who feared them.

From the deities in awe of them.

From the demons they once fought so hard against.

From the deities they called Valkyrie.

_The Wolves of Heaven._

That was what the demons called them. Ravenous beasts that hunted in packs, collared by the one they called 'Master', with just enough slack on the leash that bound them to His side, where they might turn and bite the hand that fed them at a moment's notice.

_Badb Catha, one of the first, killed her own sister then took her own voice._

They had sung for Macha when she passed. Yet even then, they had not been songs of mourning.

Their songs had been ones of joy.

For with her death, so too did a wretched demon pass with her. With her parting came the hopes of a rebirth at a later time and at a later date, long after the occurrence of Ragnorok and into a world reborn, different from the one they lived in, be it for the good of YWHL's Law or the bad of Hild's Chaos or even the Neutral that was Man.

Their songs had been songs of freedom; freedom from servitude, from long hours and days of training with one's body to the point of breaking, to the point of bleeding. From years upon centuries upon millennia of pain and exhaustion, of a silent, envious frustration of the ones around them who lived free from the Law that dictated their lives.

_To live is to die._

_To die is to be free._

_To be free is to live._

An endless cycle, it was the first thing they ever learned upon the discovery that they were fated to become Valkyries. They, who carried not the latent ability with magic so many others had. They, who were looked upon as odd, as different, as _wrong._

They, who could afford to be sacrificed, for they were not Heaven's vision of a deity.

_Macha lost her wings to Demon's spawn, and with it, her mind._

_Badb Catha, who freed her sister and damned herself in the eyes of those she protected._

_Little Lind with only one wing. Can't do magic right and has no element._

That wasn't true. She had magic. And it had an element, just like the Others.

She could create, just like any other goddess. It was why the plants liked her so much.

Plants…she would have liked to have been a guardian of fields and the life-saving herbs they produced, rather than a guardian of the battlefield.

_Needs technology to use magic, unnaturally strong, even for a goddess!_

Again, untrue. She could use her magic without the aid of Heaven's scientists. The technology she was outfitted were enhancers, not substitutes. Her magic was weak. And so she decided she needed to be stronger.

_Golden Eyes, fierce and cruel, demon of the battlefield._

Many Valkyries had access to the Golden Eyes technique; it was a Top Secret technique used only on their demon counterparts. Only Valkyries could use it, for only Valkyries trained their physical bodies hard enough to withstand the damage that was its side effect.

They were all demons. They were all monsters. The ones who danced and sang on the battlefield; the ones who brushed lips with death and embraced weapons as their loved ones. The ones sentenced to kill their enemies or be killed by their enemies, regardless of age, regardless of gender.

The ones who's true happiness was not from the embrace of a lover, the joy of creation, but the scent of blood on a battlefield; the screams of rage, of pain, of fear from an enemy; the sight of an opponent impaled on one's own blade; the taste of broken and bleeding flesh on their tongues.

Yet still….

There were those who watched in awe as they fought, filled with wonder at a strength brought on not by a license of magic, but by one's own training of the physical body.

They made war a form of art.

The eyes that held them with such respect, filled with the ignorance of youth and the hope of the future.

_Chrono, who watches every training day between assignments, mimicking the moves of a soldier, hoping for a taste of adventure greater than the mundane job within Yggdrasil._

_Skuld, one so young, filled with the imagination of a child, yet with all the knowledge of one twice her age, eager to prove herself an equal amongst her siblings. Eager to be of use to those around her, eager to be an adult._

Such children had no place within the flights of Valkyries.

There was no place for children so young, so filled with vigor and life they beamed with it, almost causing pain to view them in their youth. Theirs was not a life for beings with so much to live for, so much to experience, to look foreward to in a future who's fate was unknown.

Let them with so much resting on their shoulders find some other way to prove their worth. The battlefield was no place for them to live-only die.

And they would not find the freedom Valkyries found in their departure.

They had too much to lose in such a world.

To lose someone one was tasked with protecting was to lose the joy of the battle.

_Urd…Norn of the Past, child of the Daimakaicho._

_Child of the Enemy._

She'd been the first to be attacked. That alone did not make sense-why would a creature of the infernal realms attack one who shared it's origins?

_Daughter of the Goetia, child of the Angel Slayers._

No…it did not make sense to attack her first, did it? Did not Slayers and Angel Eaters share a common purpose?

_Urd is not a Slayer._

_That is debatable._

_Urd is one assigned to be protected. You have failed in protecting her. You must destroy it before you fail in protecting the others._

_Fail as you did Peorth, given the assignment of producing the impossible in the form of a granting a black-sheep, cur- dog of a heathen, second-class goddess a first-class license. _

_Fail in protecting the others, just as you failed your commander, Lady Sigrun, who lost her angel to the same monster. Fail like you did your comrade-in-arms, Skogul, who was always arguing with her twin._

Two goddess, lying in a coma, awaiting the return of being's whose true fates were unknown.

Two Valkyries, lying in Heaven, their fate unknown as the minutes passed without their supporting angel.

A wonder…would more songs be sung for their departure? Or would she keep them from their freedom?

Only time would tell…

_Belldandy…Norn of the present, child of the one who holds our leash, due to inherit should He pass._

The Norn had shown nothing but kindness since her arrival, of support for her mission and tolerance for her actions and understanding of her attitude in a highly stressful situation.

"_We thank those like you."_

Appreciation from a deity so high ranking was rare in times of peace, where an innocent's life was not always at risk as it sometimes was in times of war.

It was of little wonder why she was so highly regarded in Heaven. One so pure and kind…the very essence of what a deity was meant to represent. Truly she was the daughter of the Almighty.

"_I think I'll take a bath."_

Thing might even be better if she were to rule with them under her leadership. A time when there might not be a need for martyrs, where there were no death songs because there was no death to be sung about. True, little more than a silly dream; the Almighty was invincible-the time of His fall would be Ragnorok-no sooner, no later- yet a dream none the less.

Until then…

"I see. I think I'll go with you then."

Until then, she had a duty to protect the Norn of the present.

And if need be, she would die for her, just as all of them would for Him.

And even then…there was just something about Belldandy that made her certain.

Certain that in the end…

They would die for her too.

* * *

A/N: Guess who's been playing the Megaten series again?

Those games are renown for having something of a more vengeful Almighty God then most others. Most of them usually end with the main character fighting against YWHL, who is usually seeking to establish a world of Laws and purity, with the angels acting as the guards. Anyways, my mind started wandering into my own stories, as well as Lind's abilities with magic. Maybe it's just me, but it seems Lind's ability with magic is somewhat limited in the storyline, especially in the newer chapters with Hagal.

I could be totally wrong on that perspective, but considering this is coming from the same plotline as _Angel Biter_ and _Origins_, I'll keep Lind's views the way they are.

Lind has strong views about Urd. I wonder why?


End file.
